UVA Law

What To Do With The UVA Law Student Who Cried Wolf?

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I wonder what Sally Hemings would say to Johnathan Perkins.

UPDATE (4 PM): The dean of UVA Law School, Paul G. Mahoney, has issued a statement about the application of the University of Virginia’s Honor System to the Johnathan Perkins incident. We have reprinted it after the jump.

White law students lie all the time and nobody makes a big deal about it, but now there’s a black law student who lies about something, and people are throwing a fit? That hardly seems right.

Look, whether or not white people want to believe it, racism is an important issue. It’s an issue that they don’t think about nearly enough. While Johnathan Perkins might have fabricated some of the details of his late-night run-in with the law (or at least university police), his goal of bringing attention to on-campus racism was laudable — and should be advanced by any means necessary.

I’m just warming up. Let me tell you what I really think about the Johnathan Perkins controversy at UVA Law School….

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A Law Student Plays the Race Card — and Gets Busted, Big Time

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Johnathan Perkins

It’s time for more race-related drama from UVA Law School. Back in February, Elie wrote about a UVA Law party that featured Confederate flag decor. Now I will tell you about a 3L’s fabricated tale of racial harassment by university police.

(Yes, Lat’s writing this story. So you can relax, UVA folks — at least for now. Maybe Elie will take a crack at it on Monday.)

In late April, Johnathan Perkins, a third-year law student at UVA, wrote a letter to the editor that was published in Virginia Law Weekly, the law school’s student newspaper. In his letter, Perkins claimed that he was harassed by UVA university police while walking home from a party, purportedly on account of his race (he’s African-American). Perkins said he was moved to share the story “because it is important for my classmates to hear a real-life anecdote illustrating the myth of equal protection under the law.”

The trouble is, it was anything but a “real-life anecdote,” as Perkins himself recently confessed….

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This is How A Top Law School Should Look Out For Unemployed Grads

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Victory!

A couple of days ago, we told you that NYU 3Ls without jobs lined up are receiving discounts on tickets to their law school formal. It’s a nice gesture, but some NYU Law School students wanted more action from the NYU administration regarding the soon-to-be-unemployed students.

Well, maybe the NYU kids should have gone to school down south.

We are years into this legal-industry downturn, but finally we have a top-10 law school taking a basic step to help students who were unable to secure employment. Since law school doesn’t prepare you for the bar exam, and since bar review prep courses are expensive, this law school will pay bar expenses for graduating 3Ls who don’t have jobs lined up.

Which law school has adopted this policy? And why isn’t every law school doing this?

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Most Creative Way To Shame Your Office of Career Services

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We spend a lot of time with soon-to-be-unemployed 3Ls who are looking for some way to express their dissatisfaction with their law school and the career services they received. When people pay or borrow over $100K for three years of legal education and their employment future still comes down to how they perform during McDonald’s supersized hiring day, it makes people bitter.

Recently, UVA Law students have been putting in requests to be named Kings of the Bitters. We understand that their T-shirt based protests continue (can a brother get a link to buy a shirt?). We don’t know how effective they’ve been at steering 0Ls away from UVA Law, but then again, it seems like the only thing that effectively impacts 0L decision making is more paperwork.

Once you get to law school, you realize that the important pieces of paper are the ones you get in the mail informing you whether or not you have a job. But many UVA Law students are receiving thin rejection letters. One student pushed all of his rejection papers together into perhaps the most creative display of student dissatisfaction we’ve seen during the recession.

The 3L has taken the marble facade off of one top law school, exposing the sad reality lying underneath…

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Law Students at a Top School Protest Continued Unemployment

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I feel like there should be a student protest reality show.

Too often, people act like post-graduation unemployment is a malady that affects only students at lower-ranked law schools. People act like only lazy students at third-tier institutions — or “rank not published” institutions, if you prefer — end up desperate for work after three years of legal education.

But we know better. We know that the threat of unemployment is very real to all law school students. Sure, the higher-ranked schools might do a better job of getting their students jobs, at least in percentage terms; but even top schools have students who want to work but cannot find jobs.

Students at one top-ten law school are sick of suffering in silence. They want everybody, especially admitted students, to know that going to an elite law school doesn’t guarantee you a good job.

Given the state of the legal economy and the cost of law school tuition, it’s a wonder that this kind of thing doesn’t happen more often….

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Open Thread: 2012 U.S. News Law School Rankings (7 – 14)

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Welcome Texas!

As you are all know, the University of Texas School of Law has moved into the “top 14″ in this year’s U.S. News law school rankings. It’s a bit of cheat for U.S. News: Texas is technically tied for 14th, which means that the magazine has actually managed to cram 15 schools into its top 14. I’d complain more, but I’m a fan of a Big (We Can’t Count To) Ten school.

While we all know that Texas is in the top 14, very few of you remember the significance of the top 14 in the first place. The top 14 isn’t as arbitrary as it sounds. Since U.S. News started publishing these law school rankings, no school that ranked in the inaugural top 14 has ever been ranked outside of the top 14, and no school that did not rank in the top 14 that first year has ever cracked that list. Until now.

The top 14 has been a way to distinguish elite institutions that are nearly interchangeable with one another from really good law schools that are just a cut below. When viewed that way, Texas’s inclusion was probably long overdue.

Let’s take a look at some of the other movement in this rarefied group of law schools….

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Do You Really Need Confederate-Flag Decor at Your Law School Party?

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When you think about it, naming the band "Massa-Bossmans" would have been more ambiguous.

On Friday we wrote about the settlement agreed to by Cure Lounge, a club in Boston that was accused of discriminating against African-American patrons. In the comments, it seemed like some of our Southern readers where all too happy to point out that this example of racist behavior took place in the North.

Lord knows I’ve never said that racism is an exclusively Southern phenomenon. But I’ve met enough Southerners to know that they sometimes feel unfairly maligned just because of their Confederate past. Sure, I could argue that only Southerners would come up with the name like “Lady Antebellum” for a band — and only Southerners would defend that name as “merely” referring to a time before the Civil War, as if I’m supposed to be the idiot who forgets what was happening in the South before the Civil War. But whatever, the point is taken, modern racism exists North and South, East and West, probably in relatively equal “amounts,” if such a thing could be quantified.

But still, you have to give the South credit. When they go for it, they always seems to have more flair. They have a — what’s the word? — one might say “cavalier” way, at least at UVA Law, of going about racial intolerance.

It would be charming, if it wasn’t so damn disgusting…

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Quote of the Day: Who Are You Calling Mute?

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And what I think is important for you all, is that when you see people standing in defense of what’s right, that you make sure that your voice is not remembered as one of the silent. Because there’s gonna be a day when you’re gonna look around and you’re gonna look at your kids and your grandkids and they’re gonna ask you a question: What happened to the great country that was here when you grew up, and why isn’t it here now, and what did you do?

– Justice Clarence Thomas, in the powerful keynote address he delivered over the weekend at UVA Law, at the 30th annual student symposium of the Federalist Society (Politico via WSJ Law Blog).

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Federal Judge John Roll Among Victims in Arizona Congresswoman Shooting

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Judge John Roll

We’re not going to weigh in on all the rampant speculation about what gave rise to the shooting today in Arizona involving Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-Arizona). But we did want to inform you that news outlets are now reporting that federal judge John Roll was one of the victims in the shooting in Tucson.

UPDATE: President Obama is also confirming that Chief Judge John M. Roll (D. Ariz.) was fatally shot in Tucson. Here’s a statement from Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano:

“I am deeply saddened by reports that Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, Chief Judge John Roll and others were attacked this afternoon in Tucson, Arizona. There is no place in our society or discourse for such senseless and unconscionable acts of violence. Gabby is a steadfast representative for southern Arizona and both she and John are dedicated public servants.

“The Department of Homeland Security has offered all possible assistance to the FBI and the Pima County Sheriff’s Office, who are leading the investigation. My thoughts and prayers are with Congresswoman Giffords, her family and staff, and all those who were injured in this difficult time.”

Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families.

Some more details on Judge Roll, plus several UPDATES, after the jump…

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Legal Eagle Wedding Watch: Jews Versus Episcopalians

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We were somewhat surprised to learn that this actually isn’t the most depressing day of the year. That honor goes to the third Monday in January, not the first. There’s a whole mathematical formula about it. Anyway, here’s some LEWW cheer to brighten your gray Monday.

Administrative note: Signs are indicating that LEWW will soon be presenting Mr. LEWW with another heir. Wedding coverage will be scaled back somewhat while we recover from the blessed event, but you won’t care because it’s January, and nobody gets married in January.

But some got married in December — like these three couples:

1. Ellen Tobin and Todd Kaminsky

2. Rachel Laitala and Colin Greenspon

3. Mabel Hwang and Jonathan Weiss

Check out their bios and photos, after the jump.

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